The 2020 selection for Nieuwe Electronische Waar, the most important talent development project for electronic music in the Eastern part of The Netherlands. A fine selection of eleven of this year’s most promising new production talents will be coached in producing tracks, perfoming live and business matters concerning a career in music. Nieuwe Electronische Waar also releases this compilation album, proudly presenting the best new electronic music from the Dutch provinces of Overijssel and Gelderland.

This year’s selection consists of Mallard, Fentom, Mansamadi, Fjaler, Presethead, Nobuka, Roel Zweers, Nerds With Acid, Mingvs, Hemisphere and Lost Verses.

All participants are offered a diverse, broad and personal development program, supported by partners and coaches from the Dutch electronic music scene. The acts will be assisted in producing and finishing their tracks, mastering music and other technical challenges. Participants focusing on live performance are linked to bookers and/or managers.

The Nieuwe Electronische Waar program also brings participants to network events such as Dance Fair, Muzikantendag, the Amsterdam Dance Event and other events. As part of Nieuwe Electronische Waar, this compilation album is released including tracks by each of the eleven participants. This compilation is available as a free download, on all relevant streaming channels and is promoted towards the international electronic music industry.

Partners
Nieuwe Electronische Waar is a joint project of music production company De Nieuwe Oost | pop, Poppunt Gelderland and Poppunt Overijssel, in cooperation with venues, festivals and associated partners from the Gelderland and Overijssel provinces, including Esc.rec, Burgerweeshuis, Doornroosje, Gigant, Hedon, Metropool, Luxor Live, ArtEZ conservatorium and MediaMusic, Booster Festival, De Perifeer, Koek FM, Valkhof Festival, Studio Wonder, Wendbaar, 3voor12 Overijssel & 3voor12 Gelderland.

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Review by Theo Ploeg in Stasis Magazine:
The east of The Netherlands is an extremely fertile region if it comes to quality electronic music. One of the probably many factors of that success is the excellent infrastructure for talent development.

Seems kinda weird right, the local government subsidizing organizations to help and nourish young and talented artists? Well, it works. Then there is a tight network of clubs that program a lot of local talent. In cities like Deventer, Nijmegen and Arnhem, there is a vibrant electronic music scene.

This is already the 14th instalment of the Nieuwe Electronische Waar compilation and, like the other ones, it is released by the experimental record label Esc.rec. founded in 2004 by Harco Rutgers in Deventer. Cool label. Check it out.

To fill the compilation, there is a yearly competition. I used to be part of the selection committee way back when I still was a respected music journalist and the amount of good stuff coming in is astonishing. This edition is no exception. Eleven entries managed to earn a spot.

The range of styles on here is broad: dark trippy breaks (Mallard), headz (Fentom), atmospheric ambient electro (Presethead) and post-garage (Mingvs). As always there are some great entries and a couple that are okay and reveal how talented the artists are.

That’s the whole point. All participants are offered a diverse, broad and personal development program, supported by partners and coaches from the Dutch electronic music scene. Now, that’s something.

No wonder there is so much quality electronic music from the East of The Netherlands.

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Review by KN on Yeah I Know It Sucks:
How are you all doing? Crazy times, right? To get our heads off things the esc.rec. label just released a comp of music by new people into the electronic music business.
Mallard’s carplus is giving a promising start for this newest nieuwe electronische waar 14 compilation in which new talents of the eastern part of the Netherlands are presented. Forget about the windmills for a bit and discover a different kind of Netherlands.

It is slow and charismatic, taking it on a hypnotising time with a rhythm that will slowly slip you through the door, ready to lead you towards a nifty sounding other reality in which minimalism seems to be the sole ruler. Clearly a much better ruler than presidents and royalties in the nowadays.

Where Mallard had chosen for a true focus on rhythmic hypnosis, the next new talent on this compilation named Fentom kindly provides mellow melodies that are utterly pleasant and pleasurable for the ears. As if they had not been great and kind enough on their very own, the artist lines them up with lush ambient tones, cute bonus flavours and a excellent sounding fat beat. No one wants to hear a beat contesting in a weight watchers’s program and luckily this one is happily big in its own skin.

It’s the stuff that you can be bewildered by, wobble around with while showcasing a satisfied smirk on your face; it’s proving that electronic music is capable of bringing inner emotions to the table while still being all cool about it. Think of a heart that wears sunglasses.

The next talent is someone named Mansamadi who brings a focus more that it’s not all about the electronics on Nieuwe Electronische Waar to get some love and a place on this audio document of what the eastern part of the land of wooden clogs and cheese has to offer. In this case the artist drops a short, but very awoke sounding moment in which it’s actually the voice of Mansamadi and the creator’s worldly skills that enables the lyrics of ‘Got it cracking’ to flow out over his lips on top of some dope beat. It’s short but proofs its point: humans are next to electronica superbly important!

A remarkable thing with a compilation like this is, is not only the music itself that reveals talent, but also just reading the creative artist names. Everyone seems to have found one that suits their style and brand. Especially the one named Roel Zweers seems to be one that stands out creatively name-wise. But I’ll get back to that one a little bit lower down in this blurb of praise and discovery, as now it’s time to tell you how much I enjoyed the music of another great name that you probably never had heard from before: Fjaler.

Fjaler takes and is giving the rightful time on this compilation to flourish its music in a emotive electronic work in which fine electric loops are seemingly been played on by an artist that must have been slightly entranced by its own sounds of melodic mellowness. Oh so mellow, you could almost smell a cloud of weed when you embrace this music. It’s as if Fjaler created the basics and than closed its eyes while sitting behind a electric instrument and let it all flow in the order to create a pretty layer on top of it all.

Presethead (yep – another great artist name!) goes for a lush mellowness with acidic underlines. A great combo of chill out ambient and a quirkily tight rhythm. Not that anyone cares or should care, but this might be my personal favourite new talent on this compilation, as the combo of trip-worthy ambient tones, acid bubbles, angelic moments and laid back upbeat style is one of those things that seem to bring the best of all together, making the listener able to chose for themselves how to respond to it: will you relax, read a book, take a nap, truly listen, take a moment for yourself on the toilet, go in a spring cleaning mode or dance around kindly as this track plays?

Another new name ‘Nobuka’ is more clearer and precise in what it seems to want a listener to do, as this artist provides a short but distinctive listening piece, it might be minimal in its content too, but the sound design of its experimental order is kind and pleasantly enough to be ear worthy. Think of a seemingly stretched out vibrating warm tone, softly glitching for a moment of computer love. If you are in lockdown all by yourself you might as well make love to your computer, right?

After this, it’s the honour of the artist with the most original name on this compilation of talents to shine and rise & do its thing. It’s probably in the name that talent has been assigned naturally in (I’m thinking of Roel Funcken and Roel’s Beestenboel as other namesakes of talented Roels out there) but now it’s truly Roel Zweers and his La Marina tune to flow by as it eats a well deserved large piece of the sound pie that this compilation is offering us. Yum!

With a sweet melodic twinkling work that kindly settles and sprays itself out for almost ten minutes, you will be surprised how delicate and fine it all is, easily realising that even ten minutes of this music isn’t enough & so you will probably hitting that repeat button a couple of times in a row, turning this colourful pleasant material into a full length sensation that with its minimal sensations never seems to bore.

It’s a pleasant ordeal what Roel had created over here, single handily making you forget that we are in a worldwide crisis & that we had been actually listening to a compilation that includes other tunes made by different artists than Roel Zweers as well. Funny isn’t it? What? Ah I forgot .. I was listening for a tenth time to Roel Zweers!

The pressure to find a fitting follow up on such a beautiful audio escape must have been very high for the compilation compiler, probably having sleepless nights and many sweaty foreheads to fix and conquer this ‘problem’, as who could possible follow up such a beauty as provided by Roel Zweers?

Eventually the Nerds on Acid had been brought in as a buffer, the one that is hopefully high enough to be able to carry the incredible weights and burden of being the next best thing after a talent such as Roel. Give Roel a stool of praise!

A difficult task to take over, but thanks to the Nerds On acid being so different in style and sound they just might be able to stand up and take it like a warrior in compilation land. Nerds On acid are proving that not every track named ‘high energy’ needs to be on itself a case of running around on speed. Instead the Nerds On Acid lay down with a bleak creeper in which a sampled woman seems to chat about her LSD experience, as she felt the high energy, a sensation that Nerds On Acid decorate with a feverish manic repetition and a electro beat that might be ready for deejays to drop in a club once they will be opened up for the public again. Maybe it’s open with only the club owner inside dancing happily in self isolation tones own secret collection of Abba tunes.

Than there is Mingvs that drops the music over here, stuff that you would expect a drill hop rapper, (a special one, with pure sensitive tendencies) to be dropping some dope words over. No gangster negativity, but probably one talking about love and nice romantic stay ins , a poet of sexual niceness.

Voorlopig Goed is the tune’s name, which is roughly translated as ‘fine for now’, a thing some people hopefully could relate too, as they are safely holed up in their houses. The pretty melody and sounds that make it are feeling as it’s warm and safe inside , like a sexy love ballad waiting for a rapper to spread the touch of ultra seducement.. but without it, it’s definitely fine for now.

Of course a complication of Nieuwe Electrische Waar cannot be without a dance tune that comes across as the kind of track that embodies Netherlands biggest export product (next to xtc). A very clubby dance trance track with that kick, bass, & high hat that is seemingly capable to bring that timeless bliss forever into the final bits of eternity. It comes of course with all that is needed in synth form to get those glow sticks out for, although now in the Corona circumstances you might have to make this into a private rave while flipping the light switch on and off as a stroboscopic visual effect.

At the end we are getting slightly lost with another original artist name that is waiting to be googled up in the hope to hear more of it. “Lost Verses” it is & delivers the final piece of music on this compilation, a piece of rest and calmly done material that comes across like the meeting of morning drops on top of fresh smelling flowers, it’s severely kind with the appearance of an computerised angelic fairy that had come down to wave her wand in order to calm us all down. Bless this fairy! A good message to end this compilation of talents with. Hopefully it brings some relief or at least a little break from worries & hope that these people will have a future full of glee!